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FOLLOWING THE SENTENCING of Wicklow County Council yesterday, the Irish Fire and Emergency Services Association (IFESA) said they want the Department of the Environment to learn from the case in which Bray firemen Brian Murray and Mark O’Shaughnessy died when the roof collapsed on them as they were fighting a blaze six years ago.
Yesterday, Wicklow County Council, who eventually pleaded guilty to a number of charges was fined €355,000 and were ordered to pay costs of €95,793.32. The maximum possible fine could have been up to €3 million.
Wicklow County Council was accused of not keeping its fire safety statement up to date, not ensuring a second fire engine was brought to the scene of the fatal blaze, and not ensuring that proper training was carried out for firefighters using new equipment.
Tortuous six years
The National Chairman of the IFESA, John Kidd said they had been honoured to support the Murray and O’Shaughnessy families throughout the last tortuous six years which they had to wait before Wicklow County Council went on trial.
‘We want other local authorities and indeed the Department of the Environment to learn from this case and never repeat the mistakes of Wicklow County Council,’ he said.
Following the deaths of the two fire officers, one a father of 15 and the other a young man in his 20s, fire officers, locals and their families took to the streets to complain about a variety of issues, including alleged ‘call-vetting,’ lack of funding and a perceived need for a fulltime fire service.
At every Bray Town Council meeting for the last decade, a protest has been held outside the town hall calling for a full-time fire service. But it is not until issues like these, the deaths of two men, do the issues get pushed to the fore.
Following the sentencing yesterday, Mr Kidd said the wider implications of the Wicklow tragedy were for the need for the establishment of a national fire and ambulance service.
Further loss of life
‘Delivering these services in the way that they are at present, with the duplication of administrators and bloated numbers of managers relative to the number of active firefighters is hugely wasteful of resources and will lead to further tragedy and loss of life,’ said Kidd.
In a statement following the sentencing yesterday, Wicklow County Council said it “accepted that there were breaches in a number of systems of work in the operation of its Fire Services between 2005 and 2007″ and said they had “since addressed all of the Safety, Health and Welfare at Work issues raised by the case”.
Call vetting is another issue that the IFESA has highlighted. Back in 2011, they called for an end to call-vetting, which they said has been in operation in Wicklow for a number of years.
Local Sinn Fein Councillor, John Brady, who has been a long time campaigner for improved fire services in Wicklow said that call vetting is where each call goes through a centralised system and is put through a pre-determined attendance (PDA).
Response time
“If it is a house fire or a factory a crew will automatically be called out, but often times he explained Pearse Street would have to contact the rostered fire officer first, who will then determine the nature of the fire and whether a crew is needed,” he said. In this case Cllr Brady said “it was not immediate”.
“What has happened in the past is that the chief fire officer would go out to the fire incident first and determine if a crew call out is necessary, this is known as call vetting,” he said.
He said that officials say there is no call vetting but he firmly maintains there is, as does the IFESA.
Just last weekend, an incident was reported to the IFESA, about a fire in Bray. A fire in a wooded area at Ravenswell in Bray near St John of Gods House, a school where disabled children attend, was called in by a local man.
Fire incident
The man said he knew young children had made a den area in the woods and was unsure if there was anyone inside the structure. He was also wary of where the fire was and its close proximity to the school. Thankfully no one was inside.
Speaking to TheJournal.ie, he said, that when he exited the woods he noticed a car pull up and a woman get out and look at the scene from the side of the car. He warned her of the dangers but she just got back into the car and drove off.
At least 20 minutes after the initial call, fire fighters from Bray arrived and extinguished what remained of the fire.
The man who had made the initial intervention said he was some what annoyed at the delay in the response to the fire. The fire fighters stated they responded as soon as alerted, he said.
The man said he then noticed the woman standing near the fire engine. He approached her and said he had seen her at the scene earlier. She was a member of the fire crew, who had come to take a look at the fire first, he said. He added that he had complained about the delay in their response, adding that especially as to where the fire was, there should have been a quicker response.
In a previous interview with TheJournal.ie, Mary Murray, wife of one of the Bray fire men who lost their lives in the fire said that “call vetting that is in place is a huge issue for both society at large and it is simply not fair to the firemen”.
Council response
Wicklow County Council said yesterday that “one of the most widely used mechanisms for mobilising fire services is what is termed a “Pre-determined Attendance”. Predetermined Attendances (PDAs) have a number of meanings, but are usually taken as the instructions given by a Chief Fire Officer to the relevant Communications Centre for an initial fire service response to a call for assistance. These include:
• Incident specific PDAs (e.g. for Domestic Fires, Road Traffic Collisions etc.) setting the numbers and types of appliances to be mobilised to that category of incident.
• Specific Risk Premises PDAs (such as Institutional buildings, Airports, Seveso sites, industrial premises etc) listing the number and sequence of appliances for initial dispatch to the specific building.
In September 2007, Wicklow County Council said they were one of a number of fire authorities who were in the process of doing the necessary preparatory work in terms of address validation and assigning formal written “Pre-determined Attendances” prior to joining the East Region Communications Centre.
Wicklow closed its Watch Room and joined the ERCC as scheduled in October 2007 adopting the ERCCs standardised format for PDAs.
Mr Kidd said the IFESA was calling on the Health and Safety Authority (HAS) to conduct a special report into the fire service nationally as provided for under mechanisms under the Health and Welfare at Work Act 2005.
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A tragic story that I remember well. Heartache for the families to hear that had safety procedure been adhered to and more up to date equipment used, then loss of lives could have been prevented.
While there is no fine or penalty appropriate enough, the fines imposed are now having to be paid by a government funded body, so the council will have to tighten up their expenditure for a few years to cover that. So who is really being penalised here…??? How about pointing the finger at specific individuals who’s job it was to make sure the rules were adhered to. Why are these people being protected by the umbrella of basic politics again. Utterly crazy
Accountability within the establishment! I’m not putting money on that one.
In the public service the reason nobody is responsible for anything is because unions will use the victimisation card anytime an individual is asked to be held to account with the threat of strike, everyone is responsible,therefore nobody is liable,it stifles transparency and accountability and should not be tolerated in a democratic country.
‘Call Vetting’ Is the real emergency in the Irish Fire Services.
There is a saying that ‘timing is everything’ and nowhere is this truer than when it comes to the response of the emergency services to a 999 call. And few people understand the importance of time better than the men and women of the fire services who know all too well that when emergencies happen, and lives and safety are on the line, then minutes, and seconds count.
Imagine then the concern and frustration of fire and emergency service personnel throughout the country when they know that increasingly emergency 999 calls are subject to ‘Call Vetting’ by Chief Fire Officers who decide if an emergency call warrants the turn out of the fire service or not – and that these ‘Call Vetting’ decisions are being made in the interests of cost savings.
‘Call Vetting’ in its simplest is where a broader spectrum of calls are seeing a delayed response or no response at all from the Fire Service – it is a means of implementing tighter financial control on the provision of a vital public service.
Fire fighters as highly trained professionals regularly ask themselves – did we respond adequately to that emergency ?, could we have done more or better?, did we do everything possible in responding to the 999 emergency? It is part of our professional training to do so.
However, increasingly the concern of fire-fighters is that ‘Call Vetting’ as dictated to by the need to save money, is resulting in a delayed or indeed no response at all from the fire services, and that the public and communities throughout the country can no longer rely on the fire services to respond to emergencies.
We know that in certain regions of the country, Fire Control 999/112 control rooms on the instructions of Chief Fire Officers are requesting Gardai or HSE Ambulance service to check out incidents to see if Fire Service is required before the Fire Engines are mobilised. In effect this is a post code lottery that decides a response from the Fire Service!!
IFESA identified the use of ‘Call Vetting’ by Fire Officers and its negative impact on response times over a year ago. The National Ambulance Service denied that the practice was in place but last month it was reported that the National Ambulance Service (NAS) and the National Directorate for Fire and Emergency Management were in talks to try to reach agreement to allow the ambulance service request fire fighter assistance without being billed.
This report confirms the evidence that IFESA had compiled on the growing reliance and a more rigid interpretation of ‘Call Vetting’ of emergency 999 calls as a cost saving measure. Sadly and with reluctance IFESA have had to warn that the use of ‘Call Vetting’ is a disaster waiting to happen.
It is also blatantly obvious that using ‘Call Vetting’ as a crude mechanism of implementing more cutbacks in the Fire & Rescue service is a ‘false economy’ that makes short term savings at the expense of much bigger long term costs for the HSE and other agencies in the long run.
All the evidence (and indeed common sense ) shows that early intervention by fire and emergency ambulance services in certain medical emergencies cuts down on long term costs to the HSE and other services.
The public’s right to a full fire service is further threatened by the policy of inter-agency billing between the Gardaí, HSE and the fire and ambulance service, that is where the fire service charge the Gardai and HSE for a turn out at emergencies. This is a further pressure from management to justify why the fire service has been called to assist the public.
It is IFESA’s strong view that there should be No inter agency billing of emergency services.
It is time for the public and local public representatives to ‘Wake Up’ to the practice of ‘Call Vetting’ and the threat that it poses to the public and property, through the non-attendance of the fire services at emergency situations for cost cutting reasons.
For the public access to 999 emergency responses is a ‘safety net’ that provides protection and peace of mind. ‘Call Vetting’ removes that safety net and is increasing the risks to the public throughout the country.
A number if things amaze me about this case:
Why was the case taken against the Council as a corporate body only and not jointly with the people who had a duty of care to the Firemen?
Six years is a long time for the case to proceed? Why did it take so long?
The fine is approx 10% of what they could have been fined per charge? They were found guilty on three charges so the total fine could have been €9m. In the case of Nolan Transport, where two people died as the result of an accident, the company was fined €1m. So why the difference? Yes the cases are different but ultimately two died in each incident.
The Council initially pleaded not guilty to the four charges. The trial started and the Firemen’s families and colleagues had to relive the awful tragedy. On day four after some negotiations, they changed their plea to one of guilty but just for three charges. Why was the fourth charge dropped? Usually in a trial where the charged party forces a trial and later changes their plea, the trial judge usually “punishes” them for this; but not in this case. Why?
No Marty,At the time of the investigation a number of people had been arrested in connection with the deaths, including senior officials within the Wicklow fire service and the county manager Mr. Sheehy who is the ‘head’ of the fire service.The Chief Fire officer in charge at the time has retired since and of some officials have been promoted I believe.
Its incredible that fire services are run by county councils. A full review is required to nationalise this.
Another complete failure of public services with no accountability. Hogans reforms are completely wrong. Town councils should be left reporting to 4 or 5 regional councils.
The amount of the fine was irrelevant. The fact people weren’t held accountable was wrong.
A terrible tragedy for these men and their families.
The people in charge when this was allowed to happen. Have any of them quit their positions.
It seems incredible that emergency services would send out a scout to the scene of a fire/accident to make a further assessment of emergency personnel requirements to deal with the situation before actually sending help. We are told of the “Golden hour” for accident victims and how outcomes are affected by rapid response so obviously this time frame is not relevant in Ireland. I shudder to think I could be standing at my bedroom window while my house is on fire, waiting to be rescued and I notice someone watching me , using their mobile phone to advise how many should come……send them all..it’s an emergency , a fire doubles in size every minute.In relation to the two fire fighters who lost their lives, my heartfelt condolences to their families and colleagues in the fire services and shame on those in Wicklow Co. Council for their failures in policy which contributed to these deaths, financial considerations should never come before safety especially when we call our “999″ crews out.
There seems to be no accountability when it comes to government bodies etc,In a previous life working as a operations manager I had a duty of care for all of my employees.
This included making sure that all employees had up to date training,safety wear and that equipment and vehicles used had DOE etc.
Now if an accident or incident occurred while an employee was driving a vehicle,Which was not road worthy I could be dealing with the RSA for non road worthy vehicle.
The HSA for not providing a safe place for my employees to carry out their work etc,And I would be up in court on various charges along with the company.
It seems to be that if you are a manager or officer in certain public bodies and fcuk up,You are not accountable to anyone unlike the private sector.
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